Jeremy Scahill: How Osama bin Laden Led the US to Declare War on the World

May 2, 2011

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On Democracy Now! this morning, The Nation‘s Jeremy Scahill explains that Osama bin Laden’s killing in Pakistan yesterday is not necessarily a cause for celebration: the United States used the man who launched the September 11 attacks on America as a reason to "declare war on the world," Scahill says. In response to September 11, "Iraq was invaded, a country that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda, nothing to do with bin Laden. The United States created an Al Qaeda presence in Iraq by invading it, made Iran a far more influential force in Iraq than it ever would have been. We have given a grand motivation to people around the world that want to do harm to Americans in our killing of civilians, our waging of war against countries that have no connection to Al Qaeda and by staying in these countries long after the mission was accomplished… This is a somber day, when we should be remembering all of the victims: the three thousand who died in the United States and then the hundreds of thousands that died afterward."